“Do you want me to bring them here?” asked a brawny man in a muffled voice. “Or have Huang Yun go?
Huang Yun was extremely fast and skilled at moving through the earth.
“That’s alright!” Hao Lianchuan shook his head. “Now is not a good time to leave—everyone’s keeping an eye on everyone else. Be careful of being assassinated if you move by yourself.”
There wasn’t much danger to Yuan Shuo as one, it would cause a great disturbance if one of the powerhouses left and two, everyone still hoped that the professor could be involved in the expedition. Thus, they wouldn’t raise a hand against him in the short term.
Hao Lianchuan breathed out heavily and changed to a solemn topic. “Has anyone caught sight of Sun Yifei?”
“No, but someone in Rift Canyon saw him by the bridge a few days ago...”
True worry appeared in Hao Lianchuan’s face. Would Sun Yifei attack Yuan Shuo before the excavation began? If that was the case, all sides would erupt in war before anyone entered the ruins. The Night Watchers would never let Yuan Shuo die .
“These people were the instigators of bedlam in the history of Silver Moon’s martial world,” someone sighed explosively. “People died everyday then. Now that Sun Yifei is back and Yuan Shuo is coming... the chaos of the martial world won’t be returning too, will it?”
The assembly immediately fell silent. Some still recalled the events of decades ago!
Li Hao and the others hopped into a car—it was Liu Long driving. There was quite a distance between Silver City and Rift Canyon. He wasn’t at ease letting Li Hao or Wang Ming drive.
There were four humans and a dog in the car. Panther had beelined for the car and jumped straight in. Neither Li Hao nor Yuan Shuo minded. If Panther didn’t go where the two of them went, that would make it a stray dog. They would come back together if possible. If not, all three could go down together in the ruins.
Liu Yan was in charge of relaying intelligence. Some came from the Night Watchers, some from Silver City’s own efforts.
“Rift Canyon is approximately one thousand kilometers away. It’s very wide at another one thousand kilometers across. Widely regarded as a calamity for birds, it extends three hundred meters into the earth at its deepest and several dozen meters at its shallowest.
“Rock cliffs form both sides and some ruins can be found in its depths. Based on ancient records, it might have been a city in times long past. The entire city was buried in the canyon after the ground caved in.
“On this expedition are the Silver Moon branches of the three great organizations, two mid-sized organizations, and fourteen small organizations. This does not rule out the participation of independent supernaturals!” Liu Yan looked back at Li Hao. While Wang Ming and Yuan Shuo most likely understood the situation, Li Hao did not. “Based on our information, supernatural organizations with Solars are considered mid-sized. Those with only Sunflares are small organizations. On this excavation, the mid-sized organizations can possibly match the three great organizations. The three greats have not stationed their main force in the province, whereas the mid-sized organization may be sending out most of theirs!”
Li Hao nodded as he knew she was talking to him.
“Of the two mid-sized organizations, one is called Light Island and the other is Sword Sect,” Liu Yan continued.
Li Hao nodded again and his teacher suddenly interjected, “The leader of Sword Sect should be the Earthturner Sword of the Seven Swords—Hong Yitang.”
“Do you know him, teacher?” Li Hao wasn’t asking whether or not his teacher knew the man, but if there was a grudge between the two. Please speak frankly! You killed three of the Seven Swords and even obtained the heritage of the Ghost Shadow Sword! So how severe is the grudge between the two of you?
“There’s no enmity between us!” Yuan Shuo huffed as he grasped the connotations behind his student’s question. “I’m not familiar with him. The guy was more low profile back in the day—some of the other Swords were more prominent, some more mysterious. The Earthturner Sword was neither here nor there. He didn’t stand out or catch the eye. Not many people like him died then as no one would really come kicking down his door!”
“......” The rest didn’t know what to say. Kick down his door? So that’s what all of you guys did in those times?
“Is the Sword Sect’s swordmaster Hong Yitang?” asked Liu Long from the driver’s seat. “There’s nothing about that in our intelligence and come to think of it, my father was in touch with the Earthturner Sword back in the day...”
“Don’t try to call on old ties, there’s no point!” Yuan Shuo remarked faintly. “Your father’s been dead for many years, so whatever relationship they might’ve had scattered long ago!”
It was as if the lights were extinguished when one died in the martial world. Unless it was a friendship for the ages, a descendant would gain nothing after the person in question was dead for so many years. What relationship was there to speak of?
Liu Long said nothing further.
“Does this mean a lot of martial master powerhouses from those times have crossed over to the supernatural world?” Li Hao couldn’t help but ask. “Why do we see so few of them in the Night Watchers?”
Whether it was Hao Lianchuan or Hou Xiaochen, neither were renowned martial masters before they became supernatural.
Yuan Shuo remained silent.
“Um... I know a little about this,” Wang Ming whispered. “Silver Moon’s martial world was a chaotic bed of unrest in that era. Martial masters rampaged through the land even in the early days of supernatural rise. When the Night Watchers were established, the orders from upstairs were that we should avoid recruiting martial masters whenever possible!”
The Skystar Dynasty had even outlawed martial activity for a while! This was all due to the sheer mayhem caused by martial masters. While martial masters didn’t harbor ambitions of supremacy like modern day supernaturals did, they were more brazen, unscrupulous, and wanton.
They could fill the countryside with corpses in their quest to become greatest beneath the heavens. If you attack me today, I’ll attack you tomorrow!
Thus, the Night Watchers didn’t dare add martial masters to their ranks. That made for a scarcity of former martial masters to be found among the agency’s ranks. It was at the supernatural organizations and their complete lack of scruples that martial masters could be found aplenty. Some organizations were even founded by martial masters.
“There will certainly be Solars from the three great organizations among the expedition,” Liu Yan continued. “As for how many and who, we have no information on that. The two mid-sized organizations will likely also send Solars. Meanwhile, we will see plenty of Sunflares from the fourteen small organizations. Director Hao is leading the Night Watcher team and we’ve sent seven Sunflares ourselves.”
The Night Watchers had fielded quite an expedition team as well. Yuan Shuo kept his eyes closed in repose as he listened to Liu Yan’s overview.
“Don’t pay attention to only the people.” He opened his eyes. “There’s also the ruins themselves to consider! When I explored them three years ago, I nearly died there!”
The injury to his heart was from that excavation.
“A Sunflare led the team, but he died there. We also had some Darkmoons with us. Keep in mind that Sunflares were very valuable three years ago. The supernatural has developed so quickly that three years ago, all Sunflares had hope to become Solars!”
“That’s right!” Wang Ming piped up when he thought of something. “I’d just joined the agency three years ago and remember a supreme powerhouse dying on that mission, along with some Darkmoons...”
Yuan Shuo ignored him and continued, “Those ruins are not ordinary ruins. They’re an ancient city!”
Ruins were delineated by size. A grave could be called a ruin, but the one on the agenda this time was a city! Of course, the bigger the ruin, the greater the harvest and opportunities.
“An ancient city?” A solemn Liu Long kept his eyes on the road. “An underground city?”
“Yes!” Yuan Shuo responded calmly. “A city buried beneath the ground, but it retains its original appearance due to the presence of an ultimate treasure. That treasure envelops the city and is what the Night Watchers want!”
A city buried underground, yet preserved in full because a treasure had halted the immense destruction resulting from landslides.
“One treasure can protect an entire city?” Liu Long’s eyes widened. Could it still safeguard the city after all these years and changes wrought by time?
“It can.” Yuan Shuo nodded. “A treasure like that does indeed exist! That’s why the entire supernatural domain of Silver Moon has gone into a frenzy. Even though the Night Watchers and three great organizations do not get along and are at each other’s throats in the central region, they are willing to explore together for this purpose.
“Profit propels the heart. How many other treasures must reside in a pristine ancient city? Ancient tomes, origin weapons, ancient technology, martial dao and supernatural knowledge of the ancient era... Perhaps all of that awaits discovery. There might also be other rarities that are mightier than we can imagine!”
The professor murmured to himself when he recalled a certain memory. “I excavated a ruin once, not a big one, but guess what I found?”
No one had an idea; they listened raptly.
“A tree!” Yuan Shuo revealed. “A tree that had been buried for countless eons. It’d withered away, leaving only its trunk behind. No one paid attention to it at first, but when someone accidentally knocked a hole into the trunk, everyone felt a powerful force—vitality!”
The professor was both nostalgic and yearned for the tree of his memories. “We saw a drop of water, a different kind of water, buried in the center of the trunk. It evaporated as soon as the trunk was opened, but the power it exuded caused some of the ancient trees around it to spontaneously bud and grow branches. They instantly turned into towering trees. When we were swept by the power, all of us felt that we’d become ten years younger!” Yuan Shuo shook his head with wonder.
“It has much to do with that drop of water that I can maintain prime condition at seventy years of age. If it wasn’t for my injuries, I might’ve even set foot into Dominator. This is a rarity, a gem left by the ancient civilization!”
Emotions swelled in the car! A drop of water sealed for tens of millions of years had reverse-aged people and elicited new growth from old trees when it evaporated. What kind of treasure was this??
Seventy years old was indeed the beginning of decline for martial masters. But Yuan Shuo still had his sights set on Dominator when he was seventy. It was a pity that he was injured, or he might’ve succeeded a long time ago.
“Elder Yuan, are there treasures like that in this city?” Liu Long rumbled.
“I don’t know, but it’s possible,” Yuan Shuo responded. “This ancient city has yet to be excavated because we’ve been unable to enter it. To be more exact, we made it to its outskirts. Just the outskirts alone killed a lot of our people.
“The outskirts? What’s the source of danger there?” Liu Long continued to ask. Yuan Shuo was one of the few who knew these things; others who also knew might not be as forthcoming.
“I’m not entirely sure what it is.” The professor hummed uncertainly to himself. “Sparks exploded when we entered the area and burned a lot of people to death!
“That was only the beginning. Countless blades shot out of the darkness not long after that and killed many people. Finally, when there was only me and the Sunflare left, we heard footsteps...”
The others jerked with shock. There were people alive in the city? How was that possible?? How many years had it been since the city stood in the ancient times?
No one was sure; it was impossible to determine. The era recorded in the ancient records was completely cut off from present day. It was now the time of the Star Calendar. There couldn’t be anyone alive in a city , even if it’d been perfectly preserved!
They would’ve long decomposed to nothing!